Former prison guard from Whitman charged with child sex abuse

Monday

Aug 25, 2014 at 10:12 PMAug 26, 2014 at 7:59 AM

Matthew Kulikowski, 32, of Whitman, has been charged with indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14; distributing obscene matter to a minor; distributing obscene matter; posing or exhibiting a child in a nude or lascivious manner and possession of child pornography.

WHITMAN – A former prison guard at MCI-Norfolk has been ordered held on $50,000 cash bail after being charged with sexually abusing a child under the age of 14 and possessing child pornography.Matthew Kulikowski, 32, of Whitman, has been charged with indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14; distributing obscene matter to a minor; distributing obscene matter; posing or exhibiting a child in a nude or lascivious manner and possession of child pornography.

If Kulikowski makes bail, he would be required to stay away from the victim, refrain from having contact with children under 16 and refrain from accessing the Internet.

According to court documents, the Massachusetts Department of Correction notified the Plymouth County State Police Detectives Unit on June 20 that Kulikowski had been relieved from duty for drinking on the job and that a former girlfriend had information that he possessed child pornography and had been having a relationship with a 14-year-old girl.

In the documents, police said that the former girlfriend discovered the relationship in February after she went through Kulikowski’s phone and found text messages between Kulikowski and the girl that had her picture on them.

Although the former girlfriend was unaware of the teenager’s identity at the time, she would later determine that she was the daughter of another woman that Kulikowski knew in the past, police said.

About a week after discovering the texts, the former girlfriend told police that she also found the girl’s photograph and telephone number on Kulikowski’s tablet, as well as several images and at least one video depicting child pornography, court records say.

Although Kulikowski’s father, who also discovered the images, would force Kulikowski to delete the illicit material and reset the device, the discovery was only one of several that the former girlfriend would go on to make, police said.

In addition to the child pornography, the former girlfriend told police she found an “army-type backpack” containing “condoms, sex toy receipts and hundreds of children’s underwear,” which she made Kulikowski get rid of.

In April, the former girlfriend went on a fake Facebook account Kulikowski created under the name “Derek Anderson” and “found numerous chats with other pedophiles in which Kulikowski described the age of children he preferred and commented that he would take them even younger,” police said.

After confronting Kulikowski about the Facebook conversations by phone later that night, the former girlfriend told police that Kulikowski informed her about a gang-rape of a 5-year-old girl that took place while Kulikowski was deployed in Iraq serving with the U.S. Army.

According to the court documents, Kulikowski refused to describe the details of the incident to his former girlfriend, but told her that it was “like smoking cigarettes, once you do it once, you can’t help it.”

Kulikowski then made threats of suicide and told the former girlfriend he would not come home unless she did not bring it up again.”

On July 19, the 14-year-old girl Kulikowski is alleged to have abused went to her local police department with her mother to report the abuse.

In an interview with police officers, the victim told police that she was contacted via Facebook in 2012 by “Derek Anderson,” who asked her to meet him at the beach, which she did.

It was at that meeting that the victim discovered “Derek Anderson” was Kulikowski, after recognizing a tattoo on his leg, police said.

The victim told police that after she left the beach, she received texts from Kulikowski asking for picture of her in her bra and underwear. While the victim originally told Kulikowski no, she told police that she eventually sent Kulikowski the pictures.

The victim also told police that Kulikowski asked her to give him some of her underwear, which she did not, court records say.

“Kulikowski told her that he still had a pair of her “princess” underwear from when she was little,” police said in the documents.

In a separate interview with a member of the state’s Sexual Abuse Intervention Network, the victim “said that Kulikowski told her about the things he did to her when she was little. Kulikowski told her that he would touch her private area,” police said.

In court documents, police also state that Kulikowski’s former girlfriend provided them with his cell phone and tablet while the victim allowed police to search her phone. Police said they were also able to obtain the “chats” between Kulikowski and the victim from Facebook.

The next step in the trial is a pre-conference hearing scheduled for Sept. 18 at 9 a.m. in Brockton District Court.